Moving Together, if Not in Unison

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“Enemy Within,” brings together four dancers from different genres, including the ballerina Tiler Peck and the Ailey dancer Matthew Rushing.CreditMatt Karas

By Rebecca Milzoff

June 15, 2014

One evening in 2007, Preston Miller found himself at a birthday party full of “crazy talented people.” A freshman in Fordham University’s B.F.A. program with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, he was surrounded by the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Desmond Richardson and a mentor, the Ailey dancer Matthew Rushing. At one point, Mr. Miller recalled, “Matthew leaned over to me and said, ‘Man, if we wanted to, we could go out tonight and turn New York out, if we all got together.’ ”

That got him to thinking. “There’s this level of dancer who’s at the top of the food chain where they dance, but they don’t have the opportunities I did, as a student, to hop across to Juilliard or SUNY Purchase and dance with them,” Mr. Miller, 26, said recently. “I was at Fordham, and New York City Ballet was right there, there were ballerinas in my class, and I was dancing at Ailey. These arts organizations were right next to each other, but no one was talking to each other.”

He envisioned a project allowing dancers of different genres not only to share a stage, but to collaborate as well.

The result, seven years later, is “Enemy Within,” an 18-minute performance film starring Mr. Rushing, 41; Tiler Peck, 25, of City Ballet; Samantha Figgins, 24, of Complexions Contemporary Ballet; and the Internet sensation Marquese Scott, 32, an animation dancer. “Enemy,” after playing at the Cinedans festival in Amsterdam and the Berkshire International Film Festival, was released on iTunes this month.

Mr. Miller, who choreographed the film’s dances, had been working toward it throughout college, bringing together dancers from varied disciplines for his senior show. He created a piece for City Ballet’s Joaquin De Luz, Ailey’s Clifton Brown and the drummer Ali Jackson. “I had a different language for everybody,” he said.

After bringing Mr. Brown and the breakdancer Bboy Machine together for a video in 2009, the idea of a film solidified. Mr. Miller said he “didn’t just want to tape things,” but also “wanted to take it to the next level with an element of storytelling.”

Film seemed an apt way to reach to do this. He began researching potential dancers, consulting with Mr. Rushing and other friends. Mr. Rushing talked up Ms. Peck.

“I had been watching Tiler her whole career,” Mr. Rushing said in New York recently. “She has this quality most ballerinas don’t have, this freedom. Whenever Tiler’s onstage, your eye goes right to her.”

That Mr. Miller succeeded in corralling all four dancers says as much about his taste as his persuasion skills (he also raised $35,000 for the film from board members of United Artists Initiative, which he started to promote the fine arts to those under 30).

Ms. Peck recalled: “I just got an email one day saying, ‘Hi, this is Preston.’ I had no idea who he was. I was like, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t have time to do anything extra right now.’ Then he was like: ‘I got your name from Matthew Rushing. You’ll be doing it with him.’ And I was like, ‘O.K., I’m in.’ ”

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Preston Miller, left, with the director David Anderson, envisioned and choreographed the film “Enemy Within.”CreditOzier Muhammad/The New York Times

Mr. Scott said he liked the idea of working “with other dancers that do a different style from me, but actually having a meaning behind it — not just making a video.”

Last June, Mr. Miller and the dancers gathered for a three-day shoot at a high school outside Chicago. The director, David Anderson, had never shot dance before. He watched dance films to prepare, but, oddly, found kung fu movies more helpful. “There’s a lot of big movements, two people moving together,” he said.

On the set, he said, he studied the dancers, “walking around and finding some angles that were flattering.” “But,” he added, “I didn’t see the choreography until Day 1.”

Neither, for that matter, did the dancers, who learned their parts separately, from assistants. Mr. Miller said his choreography aimed to play to their strengths: Mr. Rushing’s “liquid butter” sensuality; Ms. Peck’s classical virtuosity and “competition, spitfire spirit”; and Ms. Figgins’s earthy fierceness. Mr. Scott, whose style is based in improvisation, was a tougher fit.

“I asked him to stretch a bit,” Mr. Miller said. “I said, ‘I’m going to use my language, and then let’s fill in the gaps.’ He met me halfway.”

“Enemy” explores the idea of insecurity, as it affects three characters (Ms. Figgins embodies their inner demon). Ms. Peck, Mr. Rushing and Mr. Scott begin seated at a table, performing a repeated gestural motif, then solos and duets in vignettes.

Insecurity was a subject close to the dancers’ hearts. “It’s something we all deal with on a regular basis and don’t necessarily want to admit,” Ms. Figgins said.

And Mr. Rushing, who partners Ms. Peck in “Enemy,” found himself more nervous than he expected. “Because I’m a modern dancer, rarely do I partner a woman on point,” he said. “Considering I haven’t done it since high school, you start getting a little ‘Ooooh my God.’”

Though there was little time for bonding on the set, all four dancers spoke of the experience as pushing their art to new levels.

“There’s always something new to learn from someone else,” Ms. Figgins said. “Especially Marquese — all his stops and moments of stillness, that’s something I can put into my own work, for sure.”

Mr. Miller said he hoped “Enemy” would be a model for future projects, a tangible product rendering the fine arts “more relevant to millennials.”

“There are a lot of different dance neighborhoods,” he said. “And there’s no town hall meeting. There’s a real space to create a place where people can play.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR7 of the New York edition with the headline: Moving Together, if Not in Unison. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe